


bright

by leafings



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pining, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-27 04:21:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5033527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leafings/pseuds/leafings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>chainsaw is starting to give away ronan's secret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bright

Pre-Chainsaw, Ronan could keep his secret easily. It was a small thing at first, that fluttered against his chest when the trailer-rat looked at him when Gansey made a particularly shit joke. It grew every time Adam smiled at him, until it beat against his ribs. But for all that it could have spilled out, it didn't. Sexuality was something that he was taking some time to come to terms with. But it would be on his terms, and no one elses, especially not Kavinsky's. His heart beat out a strange tattoo in his chest every time that asshole smirked at him behind his sunglasses, something he hated himself for. He hated himself for it even more when Kavinsky would make a homophobic comment about Gansey and himself. 

Post-Chainsaw, it was becoming increasingly difficult. He hadn't even realised what was going on at first, and therefore he couldn't stop it until it was too late. 

It started off with the small things, Adam standing in the living room and she would fly over, flutter nearby him before returning to Ronan's shoulder. Adam would reach out, but she'd be slightly beyond his grasp. He would smirk, it was a game. 

She'd peck at his clothes, pull at them and he would playfully swat her away. Ronan would whistle for her attention and she would ignore him. She was a treacherous thing. If Adam was in the room and Ronan wasn't, it was him that she would hover around- but never touch. It was driving Ronan just as crazy as he was sure that it was driving Adam. It conceivably made sense that usually gentle Adam would be someone she would be drawn too. He was respectful of her space and boundaries, very unlike how he pushed Ronan constantly, challenged him when nobody else did. It was a juxtaposition. But it quite clearly made her feel safe.

It made Ronan on the other hand, very nervous. He wanted to snatch Chainsaw out of Adam's hands and take her back, just like sometimes he wished he could take back the way he felt about him. That stupid fluttering in his chest that had started a few weeks after Gansey had introduced Ronan to the other boy, once the pity and the disgust had wormed it's way out of him and been replaced by god damn _feelings_. Feelings about Adam's hands, and the freckles he got on his cheeks and forearms over that summer.

So he lets it carry on, what's the harm in letting the animal have what she wants? He regrets that thought about 7 minutes after he makes it, when he sees her unpicking the stitching of Adam's already threadbare jumper.

She's becoming a living personification of his embarrassing crush on Parrish. And he can't seem to do anything about it.

* * *

 

Ronan would take her over every time that he slept on Adam's floor above the church. The church, being the place where he had dreamed up the little bird, always gave him some measure of comfort anyway. It was extremely apt that Adam lived here, among the place where he came to pray and dream. Ronan had thought that there had been nothing greater that God himself had dreamt up, than Adam Parrish.

"She seems such a nervous thing," Adam remarked one day, studying the bird that was currently playing with the leather bracelets that gathered around Ronan's wrists. They covered his scars and had the added extra of making him look a little bit more impervious to the world.

"Wouldn't you fucking be if you were ten times smaller than everything else?" Ronan said back, Adam shrugged and reached out with a gentle and slow hand towards her.

She stilled, and so did Ronan. Adam's hand connected with the soft feathers on the top of her head, it bobbed slightly under the pressure as the back of his hand stroked her. His hands, fine boned and delicate, something that Ronan had stared at thousands of times skimmed across her. 

"I wouldn't hurt you," He almost cooed and Ronan felt the thing in his chest break free, no longer caged. Between one second and the next he had fallen in love with Adam. Ronan closed his eyes against the fall.

No, there was nothing that could be dreamt up quite like Adam Parrish.

* * *

 

"She's very friendly with Adam." Blue says one day as they stand by his BMW in the parking lot of the church. Chainsaw has betrayed him again, fluttered over to Adam to perch on his arm. She's very gentle with him, gentle in a way Ronan would like to be but Adam would consider it constricting; suffocating. There's a distinct difference between him and the bird, but he likes to think that he poured out his better nature and his beauty into her. 

"And?" He's practically begging her not to say anything at this point. He can feel a jab rising up like bile in his throat to make some remark about Gansey and herself. He keeps himself from saying it, mostly to keep the peace. He will not argue with her tonight.

"I'm just saying," She kicks a stone, and it goes flying. They both watch it sail past the other three boys, who are kicking a soccer ball between themselves. The dust is rising up from the tarmac as they scuff it, but obviously not around Noah. They pay it no attention but Chainsaw flicks her feathers about and looks like she considers coming back to Ronan but doesn't. He narrows his eyes. She's such a traitor. Blue notices.

"Yeah, well don't bother maggot." He kicks a stone too and it goes curving, gets Adam on the shoe. He turns and Ronan does at the same time, but away from him.

Blue turns too, why can't she get the fucking hint and leave him alone?

"It's not something you should be afraid of you, liking him."

He nearly rolls his fucking eyes into the back of his head and has a fit. Does she not understand the part where she should shut up? It also makes his insides squirm uncomfortably. They had been together hadn't they? Shouldn't she be warning him off, if she understands? 

"Yeah well, between you fucking him and eye-fucking Gansey-"

"We never even kissed." She retorts.

It shouldn't create such an ugly feeling inside of Ronan, such a relieved thing but it does. He hates himself for it.

"Well good for you Virgin Mary, would you like a fucking medal?" Her face is a reflection now of that ugly feeling on the inside, and he doesn't feel a thing about it.

"I don't know how someone as horrid as you can actually have feelings sometimes." She storms away from him to the other side of the car just as Chainsaw flutters down to touch upon his arm. She's right and she's wrong. Maybe he's horrid because he has feelings. He's not so sure any more. But surely the fact he feels anything at all is still an achievement.

* * *

 

"Are you planning on taking her with you, or?"

Logically he knows he shouldn't be this jealous. Chainsaw is only so friendly with Adam because he is. She's an extension of himself, she can't help it. She's a  bird.  But maybe that's secretly part of the problem, Adam likes females, would he be this friendly with Ronan like he was with Blue? It plays on his mind a lot, not because he's got anything against anyone who does like more than one gender, but because he might not be Adam's preferred one.

The fact that Adam and Blue hadn't even kissed  plays around a lot in Ronan's head when he wished it didn't. Why, is his main question. It had been disgustingly obvious that Adam had been very into Blue. Maybe Adam didn't want to kiss anybody at all. Maybe he was asexual. That would be fine, he would be happy with Adam just liking him. He was disgustingly in deep.

Okay, but his main problem isn't either of those things. It's that he's got his bird in his hands and he's pressing her against his cheek like he had done with the dream mice. She's enjoying it, and he's enjoying that she is enjoying it way too much for Ronan to be able to handle. He's going to have to punch something later to make himself feel more masculine. Maybe Adam, in the face, with his lips.

Adam looks strangely ruffled and flushed. "Of course not." 

Chainsaw flutters back to Ronan, picking at the hairs on the nape of his neck and he swats at her. She makes an indignant noise in his ear before settling down. 

"Have a good time anyway, with Gansey- in DC." He hates how he sounds to himself. Adam probably doesn't even notice. He hates himself more. 

"Thanks." The wry smile is back. "I don't quite see myself fitting in, being the life and soul of their party."

"Well if they don't like you," Ronan announces, jostling Chainsaw as he stands and wipes his hands on his jeans. They're sweaty. "It's on them, not your problem."

"Thanks, I think?" Adam stands too, makes for the door like he should have done about half an hour ago. His hair doesn't fall flat, and it makes Ronan want to smooth it down. He doesn't, because he doesn't have a death wish.

"Asshole," He says. "now get out. I've got things to do."

 _Like, maybe bleach the image of you pressing Chainsaw to your cheek from my brain._ But he doesn't say that. Obviously.

 

* * *

 

Kavinsky happens. He spends days dreaming, but he can't pull back what he really wants to. He can't even think about him. Not when he's so far away in DC that it doesn't matter anyway. It changes him, dreaming with Kavinsky. In a way that he didn't want to. He finds that for all his initial attraction to Kavinsky's bad boy behaviour, he doesn't want to know Kavinsky. He doesn't want Kavinsky to know him, either.

It shakes something up inside of him that he hadn't thought about before.

At least Chainsaw is happy to see Adam back, a reflection of Ronan that he won't allow Adam to see just yet. But maybe, he's getting there. Maybe he would get there. 

His phone buzzed and he knew who it would be, but suddenly it was the wrong person. Lust was very different to love, he reflected, as Chainsaw chattered around, flitting and toying a stray hair band she had found on the side. Blue's? 

Lust was all-consuming, and love was a slow burn. He had been turned off Kavinsky just like that, spending so many hours with him, seeing the real him, had made him human, attainable, and everything he didn't want. The other man was dangerous, and not in the good 'makes your heart thump a little harder' way. In the way that made him seriously concerned for everyone around him.   


Adam made his heart beat quick, and it was home. Kavinsky made his heart beat quick, but it was fear.

And oh, how right he had been to fear him.

* * *

He knew, after that, that they would have to work together on Cableswater. Adam held the figurative leash to the ley lines, he worked in tandem with them. He was the one who spoke to Cableswater- all Ronan did was drain it. Adam was the heart, while Ronan took as he always did. But maybe, they could work together with Cableswater. Maybe he didn't have to just take any more. He could give. As they rode back in the car from the cave, Ronan thought a lot about his second secret.

Shying away from something that had somehow become such a large part of his life seemed illogical. Being scared to like himself for what was going on inside his brain, valid thoughts, valid feelings, was illogical. There was nothing he could do to change the way he thought about Adam, nothing that would take him away from the place he'd decided to be in relation to the other boy.

_Why do you hate you?_  Orphan Girl had asked.

He looked at Adam, his cheek pressed up against the window and his hair a wet tangle against the glass. He played with his bracelets, smoothed a finger over his scars.

_I don't,_

And Ronan found that it was true.

* * *

 

Telling Adam his secret about Matthew hadn't really been planned. In fact, not much about any of his interactions with Adam were planned. The church, was one of those things.

It wasn't his death, it had happened many times before and it really was just self-preservation. It was the look on Adam's face, the way he'd scrambled to the body and the way he'd looked at Ronan afterwards. It had shattered the thing inside to see something so ugly displayed across Adam's face, so raw, especially when it was directed towards himself. It wasn't pity he found there, it was that Adam had thought it was all his fault. The concern that had been open straight across his face, the tentative grief had just been too much for him.  _He loves me_ , Ronan had thought.  _But in the wrong way._

He had sat there for hours afterwards, and then had dreamt up a way to dispose of the body. Adam's anger at him had been unexpected, he had been ready for pity, and the sharp acid tang of bile in his mouth that he had felt as he'd watched Adam wake up was still there. He was messing this all up, instead of being the thing that Adam wanted, he was being the thing that was chasing Adam away. How could the other boy ever comprehend his feelings when he wasn't even sure he could comprehend them himself?

Adam had sat upstairs, and told him that he would die alone next time. He didn't know what was worse. That Adam cared too little, or that he cared too much. 

He had driven home, and Chainsaw had fluttered onto his chest as he'd laid in bed with a heavy heart. He didn't even bother to wash the blood off straight away, he couldn't find the will to do anything. It felt as if a heavy weight were sat on his chest, and even though he was shifting some of the secrets that weighed him down to Adam, it only dragged him down further. He felt as though that with entangling the other boy more in his life, he was damning him.

The more he thought about it, the worse it became, so he tried not too. But the fact that it weighed so heavy on him, that Ronan Lynch, seemingly incapable of feelings was actually only the way he was because he couldn't process the amount that he had.

She'd moved to nip at his fingers, reminding him she was there. She didn't much like being stroked, but maybe she put up with it from him now because she could sense there was something upset about him. She always put up with it from Adam. Fucking Adam.

He put a finger gently on her head and rubbed the feathers there. She indignantly made a noise and he used it to hide the shaky breath he took. He silently resolved that he would sort this out, he wouldn't let it go on like it was doing. He had to know one way or another what Adam was thinking.

 

* * *

 

A few days later he'd sat in his car outside the church and thought about praying. He didn't really get any further than the thought of it however something seemed to be stopping him from actually entering what usually would have been his sanctuary. At this point, he wasn't really sure if he meant the actual church, or Adam's flat. He just needed to be somewhere that didn't have Gansey hovering around, and Noah drifting about. Under normal circumstances he'd have just gone to Adam's and knocked on his door.

He was too busy watching Chainsaw tapping on his stick shift to notice that a figure had shuffled up to the opposite door. He jumped as it opened, automatically assuming the worst but Chainsaw squawked happily as it was revealed that it wasn't actually a masked murderer, or Kavinsky; but in fact just a disgruntled Adam, who slipped inside and shut the door behind him. 

Ronan looked at him suspiciously. They technically were still having a fight.

"What are you doing here at this time?" Adam asked, rubbing his hands together against the cold that had followed him inside. Chainsaw moved towards him and Ronan watched her idly as Adam spread out his hands to receive her.

"What does it fucking look like, Parrish?" He couldn't resist snapping but Adam made no other move than to wiggle his fingers so that he could grab a little more of Chainsaw's attention. She looked at him from the corner of her eye. He narrowed his. 

"I spent a lot of time, thinking about why she likes me so much, but doesn't really bother with the others," Adam said, all casual. Ronan's heart started beating a bit faster in his chest. Why does Adam have to do this? Be obviously all the time and then suddenly, all at once like an avalanche be insightful. 

"Fuck if I know, she's not even a real bird." Ronan retorted.

"I think, it's because you like me." Ronan was surprised Adam even had the balls to say that sentence, especially to him. However, he was still staring at Adam's hands, which had a shake to them. Good to know he wasn't the only nervous one.

He said absolutely nothing. He didn't lie, but it didn't mean that he had to spout off the truth.

"And I don't think I'm wrong," Adam continued. "But you've been making it really hard for me to understand you, to understand us." Ronan bit his lip hard, there was nothing to say. Instead of him laying it out for Adam, Adam had laid it out for him. The reversal of the situation had thrown him, he didn't know how he was supposed to react to the outing of his not-so-secret.

"Ronan." Adam's voice finally forced him to look up.

There was something soft about Adam's face, and Ronan was pretty sure there was something soft on his. Chainsaw had moved to Adam's leg, leaving his hands free. Hand's that came up to touch one of Ronan's own. And he thought, well, fuck it.

He tangled a hand in Adam's shirt at the bottom, gently. 

"I'm still mad about what you said at the church," Ronan said, because he loved shoving his entire foot down his throat during situations he had dreamed about for months. His voice came out all wrong, too deep, too much like a whisper to be angry.

Adam leaned forward, and there was a little bit of a smile on his face. It was infuriating.

"Sorry," and he closed the gap between them.

His lips on Ronan's were so soft, softer than he would have imagined as it neared the winter months. He'd thought that they would have been chapped, but they were smooth beneath his. Adam's tongue traced his bottom lip and he opened for him, like he did in nearly every situation. Ronan sighed as he deepened the kiss, his hand stroking down Adam's arm, tangling in the hand at the bottom. It was impossible for him to be anything but gentle with this side of Adam, no matter how angry he was. 

Ronan felt a hand skim the side of his jaw as Adam's nose brushed against his cheek. It felt like his heart was swallowing his own self whole as Adam melted more into his chest, twisted in his seat to get better contact with Ronan, nipped at his bottom lip with his teeth by accident.

Eventually forced to part by the strong nip of Chainsaw on their fingers, Adam smiled against Ronan's mouth and was still smiling when he pulled away. There was just something about it that made Ronan smile too, reluctantly, but eventually like a 75,000 watt bulb. Ronan studied Adam a moment, and thought about clarifying just what exactly they were doing and then realized that it didn't matter. He already had the answer to his questions. He shook his head and the smile off his face.

"Are you coming in then?" Adam said, sitting back, hair mused and red cheeked. Ronan took his keys out the ignition like he hadn't sat here plenty of times, thinking about driving his fathers dream car through the church walls and becoming a dream himself. Adam opened the passenger side door, and Ronan mirrored him.

No, this life had plenty of horrors without him making his own. He resolved from now on to try to not fuck up, and to create only great things. Starting with this thing right now. 

* * *

 

He observed Adam closely a few days later from his position on the blanket in Cableswater, right next to Gansey. The other boy had his head in a book, glasses perched on his nose as he squinted in the winter sun to read. For a moment, looking at him, Ronan could forget about everything that was meant to happen to him. To all of them.

Chainsaw danced around Adam's shoulders, not settling as Adam shrugged his up and down in an almost game for the bird. Gansey looked up, appeared to see Ronan watching Adam, and made a noise before looking down again. Ronan didn't bother looking away, there was no reason to be ashamed. At that moment, Adam caught his eye and smiled, Ronan found his own mouth tugging up too. Gansey hit him politely on the arm with his book, and he turned with an open mouth ready to bitch out his best friend. Adam laughed and it echoed through the air.

No, there was nothing that could be dreamt up quite like Adam Parrish. But then again, there was nothing that could be dreamt up quite like all of them.

 

**Author's Note:**

> as always, you can find me on twitter @superhusbands and tumblr at scperman.tumblr.com/


End file.
